Friday, July 22, 2011

Montage #15 – Séjour musical en France

This montage is no longer available on Pod-O-Matic. It can be heard or downloaded from the Internet Archive at the following address / Ce montage n'est plus disponible en baladodiffusion sur Pod-O-Matic. Vous pouvez le retrouver ici:http://www.archive.org/details/SjourMusicalEnFrance

I guess I played a trick on you this time, opting for French before English this week… Our summer tour leaves Spain for France. Here’s your travel agent’s itinerary for this week (not necessarily in order of play on the montage).

French Bach – or is it?

Bach himself never referred to these suites as “French” That title was assigned in the late 18th century, and is based on the types of dances Bach employs in these works. The dances are French in title and origin, which distinguishes them from the dance movements in the so-called “English” Suites or the partitas. A little indulgence, as we listen to Glenn Gould play one of these suites à sa façon.

What is a “comptine“?

In French, a comptine is a nursery rhyme, a little song children sing. Probably most of the cute songs you learned in French class in your French as a Second Language classes involved the likes of Au clair de la lune, Frère Jacques, J’ai du bon tabac, etc. Marlbrough s'en va-t-en guerre ("Marlborough Has Left for the War") is one such kiddie song, and in a bit of an hommage to Mozart (think of his variations on Twinkle Twinkle Little Star), Fernando Sor gives us variations on this French nursery rhyme. Scott Morris is our guitar soloist.

Where is Tarbes?

Tarbes is a commune in the Hautes-Pyrénées, in south-western France. And it is the birthplace of French pianist Cécile Ousset, who will be our soloist in Poulenc’s Piano Concerto. In this (in my opinion) definitive performance, she is ably backed-up by Rudolf Barshai and the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra. The original (vinyl) release included an equally noteworthy performance of Prokofiev’s Third concerto.

More Opera

On this tour, we sample two operas set in France: one by Tchaikovsky (The Maid of Orleans) and the other by Puccini (La bohème). In both cases, we chose showstopper arias: Joan of Arc sings Adieu forêts and Musetta teases her past and current lovers with her waltz from the second act.

The palace at Versailles

Haydn wrote six so-called Paris symphonies, and the fourth of the set (in B Flat Major) is nicknamed La Reine (The Queen). Years before, Haydn had written a symphony in honour of Empress Maria Theresia, whose daughter (Marie Antoinette) was Queen of France at the time of the Paris set – and she apparently liked the work so much that later the regal nickname was applied to this symphony.

In addition to Haydn and Puccini, we add another work with a Parisian connection. George Gershwin made his first trip to Paris just after the premiere of the Rhapsody in Blue. Two years later (1926), when he was in England, he took a few days to visit Paris again, and the idea came to him of composing an orchestral work describing his impressions of that city. He even bought some authentic Parisian taxi horns, after deciding to use the real thing rather than attempt an imitation with conventional instruments. Following another London opening in the spring of 1929, Gershwin went to Paris for a longer visit, during which he had stimulating meetings with Ravel, Stravinsky, Prokofiev, Poulenc and Milhaud--and bought more taxi horns. He returned to New York on June 20, completed the piano sketch for An American in Paris. It was made famous by Gene Kelly’s unforgettable choreography in the Vicnente Minnelli 1951 film of the same name.

Paris is the last stop on our journey, and we will set camp here for the week, as we await the arrival of Mozart who will join us on a three-city tour next week.